WSJ: Tax Increases by County If Trump Tax Cuts Expire

Underlying the 2024 election map is the 2025 expiration date of President Donald Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, where Republicans will be pushing to extend those historic tax cuts while Democrats might balk.

The Wall Street Journal provided a comprehensive county-by-county breakdown of how each district will be impacted if Democrats allow Trump's signature tax-cut package to fully expire.

"If Congress doesn't act by the end of 2025, income taxes will go up for most households," according to the Journal's analysis. "An analysis by the Tax Foundation shows that, on average, taxes would rise in every single county in the country — urban or rural, wealthy or poor — but the amounts vary."

In general, higher tax Democrat-run states saw smaller tax cuts, according to the Journal's analysis, but Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said extending Trump's cuts should be "important" to everyone.

"This is every bit as important to rural America as it is to urban America," he told the Journal.

"Whether you're an employee or the employer, rather than paying taxes on that money, being able to share it with your employees has to be a good thing.

"I'm absolutely convinced that the Trump tax cuts led to this concept of a rising tide floating all ships, that our economy grew because of those."

Because of varying tax rates by state and counties — along with income levels — some counties stand to absorb larger tax increases than others, and the Journal breaks it all down, along with a searchable estimate of tax increase in each county.

"​Nationwide, the average is 2.4%, and individual counties range from the least affected (Charles and Prince George’s counties in Maryland, both at 1.2%) to most affected (Pitkin County, Colo., home of Aspen, at 5%)," according to the Journal.

The top 10 counties with average tax increase as a percentage of adjusted gross income (2026), according to the Journal's analysis:

1. Colorado's Pitkin County – 5.0%
2. Montana's Garfield County – 4.7%
3. Wyoming's Teton County – 4.7%
4. Alaska's Kusilvak Census Area – 4.6%
5. Nevada's Douglas County – 4.6%
6. South Dakota's Buffalo County – 4.5%
7. Florida's Walton County – 4.2%
8. Louisiana's Lafourche Parish – 4.1%
9. California's San Francisco County – 3.9%
10. Florida's Martin County – 3.9%

Notably, Vice President Kamala Harris former home town of San Francisco would be hit with one of the largest tax increases in the country.

Among the 3,143 counties in the U.S., here are the bottom 10 that will receive the lowest tax increases if the legislation is allowed to expire:

1. Maryland's Prince George's County – 1.2%
2. Maryland's Charles County – 1.2%
3. California's San Benito County – 1.4%
4. Virginia's New Kent County – 1.5%
5. New York's Suffolk County – 1.5%
6. New York's Richmond County – 1.5%
7. Maryland's Calvert County – 1.5%
8. Virginia's Fairfax city – 1.6%
9. Utah's Morgan County – 1.6%
10. Texas' King County – 1.6%

Among the tax cuts in the 2017 Trump tax law:

• Lower rates
• Larger standard deduction
• Larger child tax credit
• Business tax breaks
• Relief from the alternative minimum tax

There were some escalators, too — including: a $10,000 cap on state and local tax exemptions (known as SALT), limits on itemized deductions, and per-person exemptions — but there are no counties in the U.S. on average that did not get a net tax cut under Trump's law.

Republicans want to extend all of Trump's tax cuts, if not make them permanent. Democrats have said they want to keep the reductions in place only for lower-income Americans, according to the Journal.

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